Elevator Aberdeen

Graven rebranded Enterprise North East Trust and designed a £1 million state-of-the-art facility for the Aberdeen-based organisation that delivers Business Gateway services in Grampian and Tayside – ‘Elevator’.

Graven created the brand name ‘Elevator’, and accompanying visual and environmental brand and associated implementation guidelines, for Enterprise North East Trust, which incorporates Aberdeen Centre for Entrepreneurship, The Prince’s Trust Youth Business Scotland programmes and an accelerator programme. The brand name ‘Elevator’ was selected to represent the aspirations, potential and connected, forward-thinking character of the organisation and the people associated with it.

Graven created an exciting, original and flexible working space that is home to 28 Enterprise and Business Gateway staff plus vibrant working areas for accelerator businesses. The facility was originally a typical, bland ‘shoe box’ style office with carpet, ceiling tiles and fluorescent lighting. Graven transformed it into a dynamic interior with a wedge-shaped central structure containing shared meeting spaces and equipment. The carpet was replaced with a mixture of rubber and woven polyester, and ceiling services were revealed to create height and volume.

The materials palette includes folded aluminium cladding and anechoic foam with painted and upholstered seating and storage elements. At one end of the space, a circular mini-amphitheatre provides an exciting, informal space for presentations and meetings.

Elevator Chief Executive, Gary McEwan, said: “The vision to create a world class ‘Centre for Entrepreneurship’ came from taking the best ideas from around the globe and creating something unique in Scotland. The vision set, we needed to combine countless important factors to deliver a truly inspiring place that would take the best new entrepreneurs and help them create global businesses. Graven blew us away with their enthusiasm and creativity and delivered us a design that surpassed everything seen from Barcelona to Boston to San Francisco. We had ambition and Graven exceeded our ambition and gave us, simply the world class Centre for Entrepreneurship we wanted. Graven was the best decision we made.”

Awards
Scottish Design Awards Finalist (Interiors) 2015

Press articles on Elevator Aberdeen:
Design Week ‘News in brief’
Daily Business ‘Graven inspires with rebranding of trust’
Specification Online ‘Graven completes rebrand for Enterprise North East Trust’
Urban Realm ‘Graven unveil £1m Aberdeen enterprise hub’

© Elevator – supporting entrepreneurs in Scotland movie produced by 29 Studios